Recent Posts

It is perhaps the most ironic move in the industry in years. On Nov. 4, citizens in Denton – a city on the edge of the Barnett Shale in north Texas with a population of 123,000 – voted to ban hydraulic fracturing.

The idea of using lasers for drilling into the earth has long been to the oil and gas industry what flying cars and hoverboards are to the general public – the stuff of science fiction and futuristic fantasy. As 2015 fast approaches (contrary to what we were promised in the “Back to the Future” movies) we haven’t quite cracked the code yet on flying cars and hoverboards, but there might be a consolation prize in the works: Laser drilling may actually become a reality.

What’s new in downhole geology, you ask? According to the advertising and press releases that are sent throughout the media, there’s a lot that’s new – more, in fact, than we could ever cover. But since this is our annual Downhole Geology issue, we thought we’d take a look at some of the latest advancements in drilling, well-logging and other downhole innovations rolled out in recent months by a few industry heavy-hitters.

Pumps & Pipes brings together the newest technologies from the oil and gas, medical and aerospace professions in Houston to talk about something they all have in common: Problems. More specifically, members talk about problems because someone else in the room – from a completely different discipline and expertise – may already have found an effective solution.

At first glance it seems there’s not much overtly new about drilling in the Mississippi Lime – or overtly new about the Mississippi Lime play, either, for that matter – a play that oozes from northern Oklahoma through southern Kansas (and some say, perhaps, to Nebraska).

Construction continues for the new GE Global Research’s Oil & Gas Technology Center in Oklahoma City – part of the company’s three-year effort to triple R&D investment in the oil and gas industry. The $125 million facility “will be an incubator for new innovative technologies that will enable safe, efficient and reliable exploration, production, delivery and use of unconventional oil and gas.”

Recent announcements have positioned the Springer Shale as a potentially prolific producer at 12,500 ft depth, with Continental Resource’s initial tests producing more than 2,000 barrels per day.The Springer, which is a Mississippian-Pennsylvanian boundary zone formation has been an important oil and gas producer in both southern Oklahoma and in the Anadarko Basin.

The Granite Wash of the Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma and Texas has been a remarkable challenge with prolific results for operators who have solved the mystery of a highly complex play. With up to 18 producing zones, extreme compartmentalization, and pressures that can be challenging, all phases of exploration, drilling, and production require special knowledge.

The lessons taken from U.S. shale gas successes hold major implications for China’s energy future, according to researchers at the Energy and Geoscience Institute at the University of Utah. The similarities and potential are explored in a paper to be presented at the AAPG International Conference and Exhibition this month in Istanbul, Turkey.

This two-day field trip will review the geologic history in context with the past and present petroleum exploration in the North Park-Middle Park Basin (or Colorado Headwaters Basin, CHB) in Northcentral Colorado.

This course provides an overview of the petroleum industry and upstream economics, beginning with the geoscientist’s role of evaluating uncertainty in E&P, estimating prospect resources, and estimating chances of success. The course then moves on to field development scenarios and cash flow models, developing various capital budgeting economic indices to evaluate and rank various prospective field projects, production and reservoir management for producing fields and international contract arrangements and emerging trends.

This trip will focus on defining the Niobrara formation from the outcrop scale to the well bore, and discuss the key parameters that have made this play work, both from a geologic and a reservoir standpoint. Furthermore, we will describe how Noble Energy has helped to lead the industry in Northern Colorado to safely, responsibly and efficiently develop this huge resource. We will visit both Niobrara outcrops and Noble Energy production facilities to illustrate our current subsurface understanding and best practices.

This course will focus on practical techniques to investigate and optimize fracture treatments. Participants in this course will have access to more than 200 published field studies in which the productivity and profitability of fields have been improved by altering the treatment design.

The seminar will utilize traverses to examine multiple thrust sheets exposed in Sun River Canyon, the famous Teton Anticline, and an outstanding example of an exposed fractured reservoir along a fault‐propagated fold in Mississippian carbonates as Swift Reservoir. Participants will examine the mechanics of fracturing, folding, and faulting in thrust belt terrains, identify and discuss new ideas regarding the geometry and kinematics of the development of thrust belts, compare seismic interpretation with outcrop examples, and analyze stratigraphic concepts which are essential in the exploration of thrust belt targets.

Geomechanics – in both completions and drilling operations – has become a critical technology in the development of Unconventional Plays. This course presents the basics of oil field geomechanics and its application to unconventional developments; specifically, the role of stress, pore pressure, mechanical properties, and natural fractures on hydraulic fracturing operations.

This workshop is the outgrowth of continued cooperation between AAPG & EAGE to develop a series of multi-disciplined gatherings dedicated to understanding, completing & producing tight sandstone & carbonate reservoirs.

Online Training

This course is ideal for individuals involved in Midland Basin exploration and development. Successful development of Wolfcamp shale oil relies on complex inter-relationships (ultimately interdependencies) within and between a wide variety of scientific disciplines, financial entities, and company partnerships.

This presentation will look at well placement vertically in the pay, well azimuth and well trajectory with explanations of how geology and post-depositional effects can make the difference between a successful well and a failure.

This e-symposium presents techniques for predicting pore pressure in seals by examining case studies from the Gulf of Mexico and incorporating the relationship between rocks, fluids, stress, and pressure.

This 1-hour web-cast will arm the G&G asset team professionals with a core-competency understanding of these critical field realities, with direct reference to recent documented field experience and learnings